2nd Gen Solar Powered Plane Prepares For Round-The-World Trip

The Solar Impulse on a night flight

The world recently got its first look at the second airplane to fly completely solar powered.  Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, partners and co-creators, rolled out Solar Impulse 2 in Switzerland as they prepare it for what is only to be their latest undertaking.  The two entrepreneurs- Piccard, a doctor and renowned explorer, and Borschberg, an MIT-graduated engineer and pilot, have now spent more than a decade proving to the world that solar power can indeed be integrated into aviation (although they make it a point to state they're not pushing an agenda of exclusively using solar-powered aviation).  Their public endeavors have taken them from test flights to night flights to crossing the Mediterranean on their prototype Solar Impulse in 2012, to a five-stop tour across the United States in 2013.  Now, Piccard and Borschberg, along with their 90-person-strong company is gearing up for the next and most harrowing flight yet: a round-the-world trip through the northern hemisphere.

The plane has a wing span exceeding that of a Boeing 757

Before anyone makes the mistake of assuming major airliners are ordering any Solar Impulses of their own to duck out of fuel costs, it's important to know the details of how far away from commercial flight this is.  Four motors powering a cockpit with just enough room for one pilot can reach a top speed of maybe 87 mph.  At 236 feet across, the plane's width exceeds a standard Boeing 757, with noticeably giant wings, and it needs every one of its more than 17,000 cells to operate.  "It's a pioneering project, not an industrial one,"  Piccard explains. "Protection of the environment is far too often boring and expensive...We want to show the opposite...Let’s be innovative and free ourselves from the old habits and beliefs that prevent us from inventing a better future.”

Four solar-powered motors provide the power

Clearly, Piccard is not alone in understanding the impact of demonstrating how far alternative energy can take us.  The project's major funding comes from corporate giants from different industries like Omega, Solvar, ABB, and Schindler.  A flight that crosses the Atlantic Ocean can burn 3.5 tons of carbon emissions; considering the thousands and thousands of flights that happen around the world in a single 24-hour span, it's only a matter of time that this reaches untenable.  This kind of technology can't directly supplant using fossil fuels, but think about how easy it can be to integrate it into the average commercial flight.  A hybrid airliner could have solar-powered flight during auto-pilot, or even just collect solar energy while in the air and carriers can sell it to utility companies on the ground for revenue.

The possibilities are there, and it will take innovators like Piccard and Borschberg to find them.

Donal Thoms-Cappello is a freelance writer for Rotor Clip Company.